


enjoy the silence

by scrapbullet



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-30
Updated: 2010-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/pseuds/scrapbullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Eames is complicated. Complex. He wears masks like they haven't gone out of fashion, discarding one persona for another with a guileless expression on his face that can't quite hope to convey the sheer enormity of intelligence that lurks beneath the surface.</i> Wherein Arthur thinks he knows Eames, but really doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	enjoy the silence

There's nothing soothing about the music that pours from heavy bass speakers, so loud that the floor vibrates to a beat Arthur knows not, his pen trembling perilously on the edge of his desk. It's Zeppelin -- not that he can discern the lyrics through the unnecessary din -- but the emotion the guitar solo invokes is enough for his heart to ache in his chest.

Or is that just the volume? Arthur can't decide.

When Eames gets into a funk... the entire world knows about it. For a man that can so easily suppress the key aspects of his personality he is surprisingly transparent in moments like this, moments where he feels safe and comfortable and at ease.

Arthur's no fool; his research is thorough.

Eames is complicated. Complex. He wears masks like they haven't gone out of fashion, discarding one persona for another with a guileless expression on his face that can't quite hope to convey the sheer enormity of intelligence that lurks beneath the surface. An intelligence that he utilises, no doubt, but keeps hidden as if it's something to be ashamed of.

His math is fine. His spelling is perfect.

It is, after all, his job to be someone else; his meaning in life as a thief of names, of personalities, of a convoluted past and memories that may or may not be real.

Even the best forger in the business needs a little downtime.

Arthur just wishes it wasn't right this very moment.

Zeppelin becomes the Beatles becomes Metallica becomes Sinatra -- Frank's pleasant voice giving way to Nancy's almost seductive entreaties -- and Arthur's ears ring. If he didn't know any better he'd think his ear drums have burst, sound shrill despite Nancy and her wondrous voice; _bang bang, my baby shot me down_.

Enough is enough.

Arthur's face is as tight as the skin on his body, too much, too late. His research on Robert Fischer, extensive and cohesive from start to finish, sits quite happily in a manila folder on what has come to be Cobb's desk when he isn't sleeping dreamlessly on it, slumped forward and drooling on scuffed wood with Mal's top clutched in one sweaty fist, and although the completion of such a thing should make him feel accomplished, it doesn't. Instead there is something decidedly heavy that sits in the hollow of Arthur's ribcage, something that for some inexplicable reason spurs him toward the only piece of solitary space in the old warehouse they currently call their home.

It's nothing more than six foot by seven; a utility closet. Clear and empty but for a laptop and those very speakers, Eames sprawled on his back on the floor, head tilted back and eyes closed as he absorbs the shockwaves that pound through the air and enter his body, make his heart thump in his chest and his fingers tap idly against tatty carpeting.

Arthur turns off the music.

There's a pause, where his ears whistle in the absence of sound. A pause where Eames lies still, only breathes, face slack with his eyes and thoughts closed to the world.

For a moment Arthur thinks he might even be sleeping.

...That'd be just like him; sleeping on the job.

"Eames-"

"Shh. Can you hear it, Arthur?"

Arthur scowls, grinds his teeth. It's a bad habit, that, and Eames peers at him with one eye, scrutinising in a way that makes Arthur feel like an insect pinned wide and open and vulnerable.

A blink, and it's gone. The mask slips back into place, and once again Arthur finds himself looking at nothing more than a cleverly designed construct of a man that is at once closed off and open; an irritating contradiction.

In all the years they've known each other Arthur still can't quite figure Eames out. He doubts he ever will.

And yet... it doesn't stop him from _wanting_ to. Arthur likes a good mystery.

Slipping to the floor Arthur sits, his knee knocking against Eames' thigh before he settles onto his back. "I don't hear anything; other than my own ears ringing."

Eames hums, amused. "Then you're not listening hard enough."

Irritating isn't the word for it.

Arthur sighs, swallows thickly. Tinnitus gradually recedes, draws outward until there is only the soft murmur of the laptop and the steady rise and fall of Eames' breath; slow and deep and almost-there, hot on Arthur's neck as he rolls onto his side, presses his chest to Arthur's arm and watches him with eyes that see too much and know too much. Have seen and known too much. It's distracting; the warmth and the salmon pink of a shirt too ghastly a shade for Arthur to think attractive, but does regardless. It's distracting, and for a moment Arthur's concentration falters.

Eames cocks his head and his hand fumbles, finds Arthur's and grasps it tight. "Can you hear it now?"

Distracting enough that his mind switches off, breaks away, stops psycho-analyzing for just a moment, straining for something that isn't there.

"Hear it, there's nothing to-"

Ah.

The world turns on its head, spins on its axis-

(Maybe Eames isn't so transparent after all.

Maybe Arthur has it all wrong.)

-and Eames shifts, rests his cheek on Arthur's shoulder.

It's funny, Arthur muses, how one can be so blind as to not see what is right in front of them.

Eames wears so many masks that it's difficult to discern what is real and what is fabrication. Arthur has always thought of him as abrasive, like something rough and unrefined that somehow manages to smooth down the edges of everything else in the process, and yet seems to rub Arthur the wrong way entirely. Eames is sandpaper and much too coarse, and even when he's silent he is the center of Arthur's world in more ways than one.

Eames wears so many masks that the world's forgotten what he looks like.

 _Arthur's_ forgotten what he looks like, if he ever really knew in the first place.

And this? All of this? All of this is Eames saying more than he possibly can without words, saying more with silence than speech. Maybe he can't, can't give whatever ghosts that haunt him a voice, but it doesn't matter in the face of such _knowledge_. Knowledge is control is freedom is choice and the oppressive weight in the air somehow eases.

( _Are you listening?_ those unfathomable eyes seem to say, and Arthur's almost ashamed he missed it; this glaringly obvious fault in his own taciturn view of the universe.)

"Yeah... I hear it," Arthur squeezes Eames' hand; takes note of the way relief softens his face. "I hear it."


End file.
